William Harrison (author)

Three films were based on two of his works: The short story "Roller Ball Murder" was turned into a screenplay for the 1975 film Rollerball, with a remake in 2002. The novel Burton and Speke was turned into the 1990 film Mountains of the Moon.

Harrison received a Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in Fiction (1973), a National Endowment for the Arts Grant for Fiction (1977), the Christopher Award for Television (1970) and a Columbia School of Journalism Prize with Esquire Magazine (1971). He has been represented in Who’s Who in America since 1975. His stories have been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories (1968), Southern Writing in the Sixties (1967), All Our Secrets Are the Same: New Fiction from Esquire (1977), The Literature of Sport (1980), The Best American Mystery Stories (2006), New Stories from the South (2006), Fifty Years of Descant (2008) and numerous textbooks.

Harrison also served on the original board of directors (1970–75) for the Associated Writing Programs during the great growth period of creative writing in American literary education. He was also on the board of advisors for the Natural and Cultural Heritage Commission for the State of Arkansas (1976–81).

In 1964, Harrison moved with his family to Fayetteville, Arkansas, where he published his first novels and in 1966 became the founder and co-director of the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Arkansas with his colleague James Whitehead. Many American and European writers and poets came as visitors to their program and their students went on to publish hundreds of books of poetry and fiction in major New York and university publishing houses.

William Neal Harrison (October 29, 1933 – October 22, 2013) was an American novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter.